Inflation & Prices

Bolivia Inflation Soars to 34-Year High Ahead of August Election

Demonstrators gather on a main avenue during a drivers' union protest against fuel shortages in La Paz, Bolivia, on June 4.

Photographer: Marcelo Perez del Carpio/Bloomberg

A crippling dollar shortage, fuel scarcity and mass unrest pushed Bolivia’s inflation rate to its fastest in more than three decades ahead of the nation’s general election.

Consumer prices rose 24% in June from a year earlier, the National Statistics Institute said Wednesday. That’s a big shock in a country that as recently as two years ago had slower inflation than Germany and Japan.